This week we featured...

Custom Patio Table

We recently did a makeover of our kitchen. During the process of doing the countertops we found that the installers had cut out a piece of granite for the stovetop and left it for us. What do you do with a large, somewhat square, piece of expensive stone? Well you make a table out of it! To do this we traveled to see Don Sprague of Garden Gallery Iron Works (1-800-423-0158). He knew exactly what to do! He recommended that we get the edges rounded and finished so it was completely square. We used Koryna Foreman of Herreid Construction to do our finish work, but Don also had a list of contacts we could have used. Don also told us that his contacts could help you find a granite or marble remnant if you didn’t have one! Once the finish work was done we sat down with Don and drew up a design of how we wanted it to look. Don’s crew then went to work and within a week we had a new patio table. This table is powder coated so we can leave it outside all season long and it will continue to look fantastic for years to come! If you have a piece of stone and you would like to get something wonderful made with it, check out Garden Gallery Iron Works, and if you just want a beautiful table Don has a bunch of those already in stock!

AmpleHarvest.org

Did you know that over 100 billion pounds of food is thrown away each year in the United States? It doesn’t have to be that way and gardeners can help change that. We met with the founder of AmpleHarvest.org, Gary Oppenheimer, at the Oregon Food Bank to talk about AmpleHarvest.org and how it works. Gary saw how much food was being wasted at a local community garden and decided to start AmpleHarvest.org to help find places for this home-grown bounty. This is how it works. If you are a gardener and have some extra produce in your garden all you have to do is go to the website and enter your zip code. Instantly all the food pantries in your area pop up on the screen along with their hours for receiving produce, phone numbers and addresses. You simply give them a call, arrange a time for dropping off your fruit and veggies, and then go over and make the delivery. This site is great because it also provides you a form for listing your donation for a tax deduction. It is a great service because you are giving people fresh produce that would normally get composted and helps them have a more balanced and healthy diet. If you operate a food pantry you can use the same website to get your name out to the growers who want to donate. But what if you don’t have a garden or you are done harvesting for the season. Then you can just click the link on the website and make a cash donation. Gary also had this great idea. He recommended that you do one little thing, ‘Skip the Flowers’. With the holidays coming up, a lot of people will be buying flowers to decorate their holiday table. Gary recommended that you buy some fresh produce to decorate your table for your holiday meal and then the day after the dinner, you donate the fresh fruits and vegetables to your local food pantry and help a family in need. What a great way to serve two needs with one simple action. As their slogan says ‘sharing your garden bounty with neighbors in need’.

Fall Rose Tips

The fall is here and, even though your roses still may be in full bloom there are things that you could be doing (or not doing) that can help them get ready for the cold months ahead. Ben from Heirloom Roses (503-538-1576) did give us one quick tip that we can all do now. That tip is to not deadhead your roses any more this season. When you deadhead, or remove, all the old blooms it tells the plant to keep producing roses and promotes new growth. This new growth is tender and will suffer damage when we get our first frost. If you let your roses form seed pods (also known as ‘hips’) it tells the plant to start shutting down and prepare for winter. Later when we have had our first really cold weather you can then go into your garden and cut your plants down to about waist high to prevent them from whipping around in the winter winds. A great tip!

This weekend also marks the last weekend the sales cottage will be open to the public for the season. Stop by for some season ending deals. If you want to visit the fields they will be open for you to wander while the weather is still nice. If you have a question about roses you can always call or e-mail them, or if you are in the area just knock on the door to the office and someone will help you.

Bauman’s Fall Harvest Festival

The fall is here and that means it is time for Bauman’s Fall Festival. This year the people at Bauman’s Farm and Garden (503-792-3524) are celebrating another year of fall fun and they have something planned for each weekend. This weekend they are kicking off the fall by offering a special discount for their Rewards Club members. Every member will receive an activity band for only $10. If you don’t have a Member Rewards card they will sign you up at the gate and you can still get the discount! The activities band will let you enjoy over 20 different activities on the farm, including the new slide tower, hoppin' horses and the bug train! They are also bringing back the Gem Mining sluice, where you can mine for gems, shark teeth and even fossils.

The following weekend there are tons of events centered around the Bauman’s Giant Pumpkin Weigh-off. In the last couple years the weigh off at Bauman’s included a new Oregon record! The weigh-off weekend includes the inclusion of other ‘giant’ vegetables like tomatoes, watermelons and sunflowers. The big event is the giant pumpkin drop at 1pm on Saturday. After the big drop you can enjoy all of the outstanding harvest activities that Bauman’s has become famous for. There are hay mazes, zip lines, petal carts, slides, a bunch of bounce houses, the jumping pillow and so much more! You can also enjoy some of their great baked goods, wonderful plants and all kinds of fresh garden produce.

Of course the stars of the show will be the giant pumpkins. These giants can get as big as 1,500 pounds and larger! The winning pumpkin will walk away with a nice prize check and that is sure to guarantee a ton (sorry for the pun) of pumpkins will be entered. Come and walk among the giants!

Salt and Straw Tomato Sherbet

Salt and Straw has made their reputation on introducing new and exciting (and slightly unusual) flavors of ice creams, sherbets and sorbets. When we heard about a late summer favorite that used local tomatoes we just had to check it out. We met with the people responsible at Zenger Farms (503-282-4245) in East Portland. Zenger Farm is an urban educational farm where the community can go to learn more about sustainable gardening and healthy farming practices. Sara is in charge of growing on the farm with all her helpers, and she grows a lot of stuff which they supply to their CSA customers and to great businesses like Salt and Straw (971-271-8168). Now what Salt and Straw does with the tomatoes from Zenger farms is amazing. Tyler, who is the chief ice cream maker, takes those ‘in season’ tomatoes and makes a ‘Tomato Water and Olive Oil Sherbet’. To see how he does that we followed him to the Salt and Straw kitchens. Tyler mentioned that the tomatoes are naturally sweet, but very complex in their flavor and he just wants to capture that complex flavor and share it through his sherbet. To start, Tyler cut up a fresh tomato into large chunks and added salt and sugar to help break down the cells and release the flavors. This tomato juice he added to his ‘sherbet mom’. This is a basic sherbet model that he uses to create some of his fantastic flavors. This ‘mom’ mixture was basically sugar, salt, water, a little bit of xanthan gum, and some corn syrup. This is heated and combined with the tomato juice and olive oil to start to create the masterpiece flavor. Of course he also added some milk and cream. Adding the milk makes it a sherbet. All of this mixture was taken to an ice cream machine where it was blended and frozen. After 5 minutes they had a wonderful taste treat made with local tomatoes! Of course this seasonal treat may not be available the next time your stop by Salt and Straw, but they will probably have something else that is locally sourced and just as tasty.